


Steal Your Pain

by Crowgirl



Series: Scars Remind Us [50]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:23:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowgirl/pseuds/Crowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ongoing discussion, and ramifications thereof, between Dean and Castiel about the after-effects of Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steal Your Pain

L.

The mattress is surprisingly comfortable and Dean can stretch full-length on it without knocking either into the new metal panel by his head or the doors at his feet. 

He steals Sam’s MP3 player while Bobby is making the final check on the van and wipes most of Sam’s pop... folk... whatever-the-hell crap off it, replacing it with decent, self-respecting music that he figures might at least keep him from going totally crazy. Since Sam gets the Impala for the drive, the player takes them a little further towards even.

Sam and Cas have put together a cheat sheet of the rituals he needs: what will put him to sleep and keep him there. Cas unearthed one he thinks will give Dean a little control over what’s happening when he’s asleep but he doesn’t intend using this one. If the whole point is to use him like a bone to distract the demons while they get shifted to their new home, then what’s the point of Dean trying to be in charge? Demons aren’t stupid and he doesn’t want Sam and Bobby and Cas to end up with the furious trio on their necks and him somewhere he can’t help.

They’re going for the closest one first -- the one in Arizona, at the top of the sandstone, is the furthest off and they’ll use that one as a center-point to build the whole damned thing around. There’s one only a couple of hours away; Cas has drawn very detailed maps. 

Dean pulls the doors shut on himself and tries not to think about coffins and Adam and his dad and his own damned grave. 

He’s been in enough graveyards and opened enough coffins to know that this slightly rust-scented compartment is nothing like either one. Still, he doesn’t really feel better until he wedges himself in a corner, puts in the earphones, and finds the loudest Black Sabbath he can.

* * *

Bobby thumps on the metal panel -- twice -- and Dean grits his teeth and fishes out the much-folded sheet of paper. He tilts it so he can read by the faint light coming in through the windows -- he’s basically memorized it anyway -- but Castiel pops in beside him before he’s barely started the first line.

‘Jesus!’ Dean starts back, thumps his head against the side panel, and glowers at Cas. ‘What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Sam.’

Castiel reaches forward and takes the sheet from Dean’s hand, glancing over it. ‘I was concerned that you would edit my instructions.’ He turns the sheet back towards Dean. ‘And you have.’

‘C’mon, Cas...what’s the point?’ Dean ignores Castiel’s pointing finger; he knows what he wrote in the margin. 

‘The point is to keep you safe.’ The crumpled paper ball hits him in the cheek and Dean whacks it away into the dimness, staring at Castiel.

‘The hell!’

‘I did not spend hours going through every book Bobby possesses for you to ignore what I found,’ Castiel hisses at him. ‘If _you_ feel yourself disposable, _I_ do not.’

‘Cas--’ Dean doesn’t get any further because Castiel has lunged forward, awkward but determined as the van sways around a corner, and the angel is kissing him as desperately as if Dean were drowning and Cas trying to bring him back to life.

Dean's head thumps against the angle created by the metal panel and the side of the van again, but it really doesn’t seem to matter so much this time. Castiel’s mouth is warm and soft and his tongue is smoothing over Dean’s lower lip and his fingers are on Dean’s throat, his cheek, in his hair. He’s wound his own fingers in Castiel’s collar, in that _stupid_ ugly tie, and he’s _damned_ if he’ll let go first.

‘You will _follow_ the instructions I wrote you, Dean Winchester.’ Castiel’s breath is warm on his cheek, slightly bitter with coffee. ‘Because I want you _back_ at the end of this.’

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Broken," Seether, _Disclaimer II._


End file.
